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Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
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Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#12Talk about a downward spiral of terrible decisions. Cut staff and add checkout machines to save money. Customers start stealing (legit or not) so they lock down items behind glass, but have no staff to help customers so they see less sales! Wild. I hope the shareholders who accepted these changes feel pain.
In civilized, high-trust societies self-checkout works well and is very convenient.
Of course if you refuse to prosecute crime you will have everything locked.
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#13> Mentions of “shrink” on earnings calls for the first two quarters of 2024 were down 20% compared to the same period a year ago according to a FactSet analysis cited by CNN.
> “A year ago, America’s stores declared a shoplifting epidemic,” stated the CNN article. “This year, retailers are telling a very different story—or no story at all. It’s as if the shoplifting crisis suddenly vanished.”
Kind of disingenuous of CNN here to declare that a 20% reduction in mentions is equivalent with "vanishing".
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#14I recently tried to buy a single button cell battery at my local store. They're in a locked case near the entrance. I told the attendant which one I wanted, they handed it to me, I tried to putting it in my basket and was immediately told "no, you can't do that, do your shopping first and then come back for this".
I went home and ordered it online. With free shipping. It ended up being cheaper than the one in the store to boot.
Play stupid games, lose paying customers.
Same goes with shops that refuse entry to people with bags (even a small backpack! but a purse is OK for some reason). I just won't shop there. Goodbye.
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#15Talk about a downward spiral of terrible decisions. Cut staff and add checkout machines to save money. Customers start stealing (legit or not) so they lock down items behind glass, but have no staff to help customers so they see less sales! Wild. I hope the shareholders who accepted these changes feel pain.
Walmart locks their spraypaint now. Lowes does not. I'll go to lowes since it's easier than tracking down a associate at Walmart.
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#16> “If I encounter a locked case, I’m not going to start looking for a store clerk going up and down every aisle or pressing the button and waiting for someone to come over,” Dworsky told Retail Brew. “But the fact that it was over 50% of people that felt the way I did? I was really surprised.” You're surprised that bad customer service leads people away from the business providing it? This was a 101 problem. If you l…
If there wasn't any shoplifting, would they still put things in cabinets?
No?
So how is this action not related to shoplifting?
Like, how does putting it in a locked cabinet reduce their customer service needs? Doesn't this increase their customer service needs, as now they need more people to constantly help unlock cabinets and escort people around the store? Wouldn't they just prefer to have a store with no employees in it, if shoplifting wasn't a thing?
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#17I certainly don't. I resent having to go find someone to unlock, and then being pressured to pick what I want when I haven't had a chance to review the product differences/prices etc. The company near me that went long on this approach (Walgreens) also spent a small fortune recently on replacing glass refrigerator doors with giant screens to serve me adverts when what I want is a cool drink. It didn't work out well.…
"Hey, let's attach a small heater to every refrigerated case, so we can annoy customers and waste energy efficiency all in one throw!"
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#18It’s near impossible to buy those things. I live in a region of the world where condoms are locked up at the local mega chemist. Absolutely no embarrassment here on buying them of course. It’s just that pressing the button does nothing. None of the minimum wage staff give a fuck (can’t blame them). You’ll just be standing there waiting in an almost empty store. The sole clerk at the counter can’t really leave their post and there’s no one else around. Not to mention not being able to look at the boxes first so you’re going to have to take 10mins of someone’s time at least while they stand there with the display open for a sale that nets $.50 profit.
I buy online. Would suck to be a kid in that situation though.
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#19> Dworsky acknowledged that the results might be skewing high because it was an opt-in survey that readers took rather than a random one, and said his audience tends to be “interested in consumer matters,” which may mean they have a lower threshold for consumer inconvenience. Well, I'm not a reader of his survey and my general solution to inconveniences is to do something else also. That said, if my purpose of going…
> What should the stores do? Honestly, not too sure. I don't find getting receipt checked at costco a big deal so that's definitely an approach.
In some of these stores, its not about someone putting one or two items extra in their bag. Its people filling up trash bags full of merchandise and walking out the store.
People here will say it doesn't happen or it happens rarely. I've only been to San Francisco one time for a week, and I saw it happen in front of me at a Target. I've seen it happen in Austin a few times.
Re: Two in three shoppers won't buy products in locked display cases
#20You can buy a hundred shaving razors for like $10, as of 2016, the last time I bought. They will last you a long time, if you bought them. But you can’t buy them at any supermarket that I know of. They only sell Gillette or Wilkinson’s, which, at around 2,5 each, are a bad deal.
These blades must be held behind display cases because consumers would rather risk their honour than paying the deal.
Other products that are behind supermarket locked glass are alcohol bottles (overtly expensive poisonous water), perfume (ditto), and I don’t know what else.
So, at the end of the day, supermarket locked display cases show overtly expensive products which are not worth their money; so why bother?